Monsoon-like track conditions thwarted WSR’s hopes on the wettest British Touring Car Championship qualifying day for a decade at Thruxton on Saturday.
Drivers’ Champion Jake Hill – a double-winner at the Hampshire Speedbowl a year ago – put his Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport BMW 330i M Sport on the fourth row as the BTCC’s fastest racetrack resembled a raging river during the all-important session.
This was deeply unfortunate as the Kent racer, plus LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR drivers Aiden Moffat and Charles Rainford had all set top-three times across a pair of practice sessions that had featured damp, but driveable conditions.
The weather was at its worst for the second group of the ‘Q1’ section of the three-stage qualifying format; both Jake and Charles needing ultra-fast final laps to secure their spots in Q2.
With water pooling in certain areas and track conditions varying from minute to minute, Jake – the first driver to finish his Q2 laps – was unable to fight back against other drivers on the other side of the track, who benefitted from slight improvements in grip.
Jake, who was also entitled to less of the series’ mandatory boost than all but two of his rivals, will start Sunday’s opening race from eighth place with Charles – who suffered an off-track excursion while looking set to improve his marker on his final lap – 11th.
Charles’ LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR team-mate, Aiden Moffat, who was second-fastest in FP1, starts 20th as he – like Jake – was placed in Group 2 of Q1 and suffered the worst of the conditions.
Jack Sears Trophy points leader Daryl DeLeon was desperately unlucky not to join his stablemates Jake and Charles in Q2; the Cambridge racer pushed out of the crucial top-six positions by just six hundredths of a second after the chequered flag.
The first of Sunday’s three races is due to start at 1145.
Jake Hill, Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport, said: “It has been a wet old afternoon. The practice sessions weren’t too bad and as a team we were in a relatively good place and quite happy with our BMWs. When the rain came we were pretty excited, but it just rained way too much. There was so much standing water that it was a struggle to get any traction under braking, turning or acceleration, so we lost out a lot to the front-wheel-drive cars. It wasn’t ideal, but eighth isn’t horrendous and I’ll try to race well tomorrow.”
Charles Rainford, LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR, said: “It was a bit too wet today and the old ‘Rainford rain-master’ didn’t quite come through, so I’m starting 11th in Race One tomorrow. To be disappointed with 11th is probably not a bad thing. Jake did a solid job and is only a couple of spots further up. I had the pace to get through, but just couldn’t quite put a lap together in the tricky conditions. I had a little ‘off’ too at the end of Q2 but we have to learn these things. We’ll see what happens tomorrow. We know it’ll be fully dry and that I have a quick BMW from going third in FP2, so I’m sure we have the speed to come through.”
Aiden Moffat, LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR, said: “It’s been a disappointing day. I started the day with a really fast BMW and a lot of pace and promise, but things went away pretty quickly. I was happy after practice and had good pace, but that counted for absolutely nothing when the rain came down. It’s the scariest session I’ve had at Thruxton with all the aquaplaning and I just never got a lap together. There was a little issue with the delta on the car so it was hard to know what was fast and what was slow, so it was a little bit of a struggle.”
Daryl DeLeon, WSR, said: “It’s been a mixed day. In practice it was dry, damp and dry, the balance of the BMW was pretty good and I was happy with things. Then right before qualifying all the rain came down, which was so bad. I was aquaplaning down the straights! So I qualified 13th, which I’m relatively happy with, given how bad the conditions were. We’ll look forward to tomorrow, where we can hopefully go forwards in the races.”
Dick Bennetts, Team Principal, said: “We had very good pace in both damp practice sessions so we were pretty confident of being on the front two rows. Unfortunately, we had heavy rain that turned qualifying into a total lottery and made track conditions very dangerous. We’ve had several stoppages and one accident that driver was very lucky to walk away from. I think we should have delayed the session until conditions improved. We’re expecting dry weather tomorrow though and we’ll do what we can to make up places through the three races.”
